Quest for the Golden One: Revisiting the Mod Rod

The Quixotic Quest for the Golden One began with finding Xtreme Diecast’s Case Races and seeing a particular Mod Rod do exceptionally well.  That led to the question: Was it a Golden One?  Testing showed that Hot Wheels cars performance followed a normal distribution, but to find an exceptional example, we might end up testing 50 or more cars.

A few exchanges with Michael from Xtreme Diecast showed just what a great hobby this is.  He sent me not only the Mod Rod in question, but a previous Case Race veteran and four other unopened Mod Rods (he only tests one from each case).   They quickly found their way to my test track with the following results.

Neither Case Race example proved to be the Golden One we had hoped for, although one of the others broke the 1.7 second mark.  Here is what the box plots comparing the previous results look like:

While I’m disappointed the movie stars did not meet my expectations, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.  Xtreme Diecast’s track is a half-scale mile with a large drop, while mine is under a quarter-scale mile with a small drop.  Also, these cars have also been sitting for a while, which as the Kia Stinger testing showed, might degrade performance.  

Of course, the Quest for the Golden One is really about finding fast wheels, and MakersBox Motors is about building customs.  In addition to the gift I made for Xtreme Diecast’s generosity shown at the top, number 6’s wheels are going to the Big C Rat Rod Challenge in this rusted beauty: 

How will it do?  Time will tell, and I’ll report back when the results are in.  Next up in this series, we will take a closer look at the Deep Dish wheels I have become so fond of.